Harry Potter and the Ashes of Nurmengard
by Meliora Elysia
Summary: To many, Harry Potter is nothing more than the brother of the famous Boy-Who-Lived, Charles Potter. A childhood incident, his brother's hatred and his sorting into Slytherin, however, shape the man he turns into. His enemies are quite numerous and his ambition entails nothing less than the complete transformation of Wizarding society. Political.
1. The Journey to Slytherin

**Harry Potter and the Ashes of Nurmengard**

_**Chapter 1**_

**The Journey to Slytherin**

* * *

"_I admire precision. If you ask me to sum up the causes and catalysts for the Great Wizarding Wars, I won't write you a thousand pages of indigestible text (for that, you can always turn to Mr. B. __Guilhabert)__. Let me give you three simple words instead: Harry James Potter." _

- From "_A History of 21st Century Wizarding Wars_" by Hecellin Artois

* * *

"_There are some who are tempted (perhaps by indolence and conformism) to lay the blame for the wars solely on Harry Potter's grave. For a historian, such an erroneous verdict is both embarrassing and irresponsible. Harry Potter is but the product of his time; a time that gave birth to Gellert Grindelwald and Tom Riddle before him. Wizards have hated muggles long before Harry Potter was pulled from his mother's womb, and hate them still many decades after his untimely death. History was perhaps his lover and his executioner, but never has it been his pliant servant." _

- From "_Brother of Death_" by Bastien Guilhabert

* * *

**August-September 1991**

Diagon Alley was overflowing that day, crowded with children and animals, annoyed passers-by and excited parents escorting their offspring to buy supplies for the next school year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The air was dry and hot, pricking the skin and heavy in the lungs, filled with the stench of human sweat, potion fumes and smoke – smells that hung around every large shopping area that wizards had created over the three centuries that had passed since the signing of the Statute of Secrecy.

Inside _Madam Malkin's_ _Robes_, eleven-year-old Harry Potter looked at himself in the mirror with a bored expression on his face. His bright green eyes, hidden behind a pair of elegant black glasses, narrowed at the dark-haired man behind him. Harry was beginning to suspect the existence of a conspiracy against him; it was the only logical explanation as to why he had been forced to endure an entire hour of the shopkeeper's fussing around him with a needle in her hand and telling him how much he resembled his brother, the famous Boy-Who-Lived_. Merlin's beard, we're twins_._ What am I supposed to look like, a goblin? _he wanted to ask but, as usual, kept his mouth shut. The woman stuck needles into his body, fit robes around his lean frame and then replaced them with yet more clothes of James Potter's choosing.

"Sirius and Charlie are waiting for us," he reminded his father with a voice that resembled a parent scolding his unruly offspring, but James only shrugged in answer. He grabbed a dark green robe from the rack and, with a brilliant smile, asked Madame Malkin's long-legged and golden-haired assistant what she thought of it.

Harry sighed. He was used to his father's flirting with any woman he found attractive. They usually came and went, so fast that he and Charlie didn't even bother to remember their names anymore. As far as he knew, his father hadn't had a serious relationship with a woman since 31 October 1981, the night he had become a widower. The dark wizard Voldemort had attacked their home that night and when James had tried to stop him, he had been quickly rendered unconscious. Why the Dark Lord had spared his father, Harry didn't know. Probably hadn't wanted to kill a pureblood wizard. Regardless of the reason, his mother hadn't been as lucky. Lily Potter had given her life to save Charlie.

It was another ten minutes before he and his father, finally, left the store. James had gotten himself a date with the girl and walked proudly ahead, humming an ancient song under his nose. The twenty bags of clothing he had paid for the honour floated in the air behind him.

Harry looked at his father with annoyance. "It took you an _hour_. You're getting old."

"She'd have said yes from the beginning," James assured him. "She just wanted to see how much I'd be willing to spend until she did."

"And you let her do that because…?"

"It was cute."

"A robbery was what it was," Harry said. "And a torture. Next time could you _please_ buy a date in the bookstore or something? Thanks."

"I don't have to buy anything, ungrateful son of mine. Is this how you thank me for making you and your brother the best-dressed first years in the history of Hogwarts?" James asked with an injured air. It was as factitious as a goblin's compassion. "Don't complain about getting free stuff."

Harry was unmoved. "In a few months we'll have outgrown all of it anyway. When you spend a fortune for a present, at least make sure it's actually useful. A Nimbus would have been nice."

"Checking a gifted house elf's teeth aren't you?" The older man laughed. "Next time I'm buying you second-hand robes. See how you'll like that."

Harry rolled his eyes in reply.

It didn't take them long to reach the southern side of Diagon Alley. There, between a publishing house and a café, they found the best wand maker shop in Britain. Ollivanders Wand Shop had been an old, dusty but orderly place when they left it an hour ago to buy school uniforms. It was still an old and dusty place, but any pretence of order seemed to have vanished into thin air. The floor was covered with empty boxes and broken furniture, two shelves were dislodged from the walls and one of the desks had developed a nervous tick; it stamped its right feet on the ground every few seconds. Amidst all this chaos stood Charles Potter, a bespectacled scrawny kid with black hair, hazel eyes and a lightning bolt scar on his forehead.

"Merlin, what happened here?" James Potter exclaimed when he stepped into the store. He turned to his son with something between amusement and horror. "Charlie, please tell me you didn't cause _this_."

"I assure you, James, he did," said a familiar voice to their right. With a bloodied eyebrow and a crooked grin, Sirius Black sat on one of the few chairs that remained intact. A ward of silver air flickered in front of him. "It was quite impressive, actually. Your son whacked me in the head with one of the boxes," he said. "We should talk to Amelia Bones about him. This kid is just a pure _talent_, a one boy army. Dark wizards stand no chance."

"It's not like I wanted to do all this," Charlie snapped at the older man. His voice was strained and Harry could see that his brother felt horrible about what he had done to Ollivander's. The two of them weren't as close as their father wanted them to be, but that didn't mean they didn't know each other well. "Maybe there's no wand for me because wands just don't_ like _me. Let's just give up. Harry will go to Hogwarts and I'll go work for Hagrid or something."

"Charlie, that's stupid," Harry told his brother. "If we can't find a wand here, we'll look in other shops. It happens sometimes, right? Dad?"

"Of course it does," James said and placed a reassuring hand on Charlie's shoulder. "Calm down, son. It'll just take more time, but you'll find your wand."

"It's been two hours already!" Charlie protested with childish impatience. "Harry found his in ten minutes. Two other kids came while you were gone and they both found their wands in less than twenty minutes. I'm _still_ _here_."

"Not for long, Mr. Potter," said an elderly voice. Ollivander appeared from a door behind the counter. He carried a huge box in his hands. "I'm sure it's one of these."

While his brother tried different wands, Harry put his bags on the floor and leaned on the wall next to Sirius, careful to make sure that his godfather's ward covered both of them. In his hands he held a heavy book, a book that wasn't listed on his letter from Hogwarts because _those_ he had read ages ago. He and Charlie had been six when their father had started teaching them basic spells. Charlie couldn't be bothered to learn unless someone made him, but Harry had a very special reason to devote hours and hours each day to learning spell movements and reading magical theory. He was determined to become so powerful that _no one_ would ever be able to threaten him again, to make him feel small and defenceless.

The door of the shop opened and a family of three stepped into the store. The parents were tall and elegant, but strangely dressed – with tight-fitting clothes that resembled the things Harry's non-magical aunt and uncle wore. _Muggles_, he realized and his eyes narrowed. The boy was his age, tall, with curly brown hair and friendly eyes. He and his parents looked with alarm at the chaos that reigned over the shop.

Shortly behind them came a witch Harry was very familiar with. "Minerva McGonagall," Ollivander greeted. "Fir and dragon heartstring, nine and a half inches long, good for Transfiguration?"

"That's right, Mr. Ollivander," the witch agreed and nodded toward James and Sirius. She introduced the muggle family, the Finch-Fletchleys, to everyone in the shop. Harry tried not to show how uncomfortable he was with them, but, apparently, he didn't do a good job of it because he heard his brother and father sigh when he stiffly shook hands with the muggle-born boy, Justin.

Harry couldn't help it. He and Charlie had been seven when their father had decided to show them around muggle London and to introduce them to their mother's only living family, the Dursleys. Neither had gone well. The Dursleys had quickly made it clear that they wanted nothing to do with "_freaks_" like the Potters. To take their minds off their aunt's rejection, James had taken his sons to something called an "amusement park". The name had proved fitting, because Harry had been very amused by the tricks of a muggle "magician". Naïve and angry at his brother for something he couldn't even remember now, Harry had wandered off on his own, away from his father and Charlie and, eventually, away from the park itself. Hours later, when he had seen a group of older kids imitating the "magician", he had been dumb enough to show them what real magic looked like. His father hadn't taught him much, but what little he had had been enough to earn Harry a beating.

That experience had taught him two things. First, it had taught him to fear muggles. None of them took well to magic, from Petunia Dursley to the kids who had beaten him up. Harry still woke up at night to nightmares about that evening and the muggle kids growling fowl words at him, kicking him, punching him. '_Say you're a dumb little cocksucking freak. _' _'I am-_'_ 'Say it, you little moron.'_

The second lesson was more valuable, for it was the difference between a child and an adult. To that moment he had been just like his brother – arrogantly disregarding adult advice and rushing into dangerous situations with a child's conviction that nothing could go wrong, that he could survive and overcome any threat. That conviction had been torn apart, along with his pride. He was not, as he learned at the fists of those muggles, invincible or guaranteed to prevail in life. Every choice, every weakness had its consequences and those consequences could very well be his humiliation or death. It was an extremely harsh lesson for a young child to learn - a lesson many learned much later in life - but it was because of his youth and its harshness that he learned it well.

His conversation with his father after Charlie had gone to sleep later that night was even engraved into his memory, word for word, as a warning of an upcoming danger.

"They wanted to hurt me, dad," seven-year-old Harry had said in a quiet voice.

James had wrapped his arms around him and held him tightly. "No, son, they were just drunk. That's what drinking does sometimes – it makes you do bad things you wouldn't have done otherwise."

"But they called me a freak."

"They were… scared, Harry." His father had sighed. "And confused."

"No, they weren't scared," Harry had protested. "_I_ was scared. The muggles just wanted to hurt me because I was weaker. And because they saw me doing wandless magic."

"Harry, I think there's something I should explain to you about muggles. Your mother explained it to me many times until I got it in my thick head," James had said. "They don't think like we do, son. We're used to unusual things because we're used to magic. If you saw a bowl floating in the air, you'd look around for the wizard who's doing the enchantment, right? But if a _muggle_ saw a bowl floating around, he'd get very scared. Muggles don't like things that behave strangely, son. And it's not because they're bad or evil, but because they're scared of them. Muggles can't control what they don't understand and they're scared of it because it can hurt them."

"Is this why we're hiding? Because muggles would want to hurt us, if they found out about us?"

"I want to say no, son, but I… I honestly don't know." His father had run a hand through his black hair. "Your mother's parents were proud that she was a witch and her sister was jealous and hated her, but she was never afraid of her. I can't say the rest of them would react the same way. Most of them… most of them would be very, very scared. And no one can say what a man would do when he's scared, son. Fear is like firewhiskey – it makes us do things we wouldn't do if we were sober."

"But why would they be afraid of us? We won't hurt them. We'll _tell_ them we won't hurt them."

James Potter had laughed then, but there had been no mirth in his voice. "I don't think that telling them would solve anything. Some of us _want_ to hurt them, Harry. People like You-Know-Who, Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange want to hurt them and we can try to prevent it from happening, but nothing changes the fact that wizards _can_ hurt muggles. Far more easily than muggles can hurt wizards. We're all hurting them even at this very moment. We do it for our and their safety, but we still alter their minds and memories every single day of our existence like a kid playing around with a doll. You can't feel it now, but in a few years you will see just how big advantage wizards have on muggles… Powerless, scared of the unnatural and the unexplainable muggles."

"So we can't ever let them know we exist?" Harry had asked, thoughtful.

"Who knows? Maybe someday we'll be able to tell them." Even at seven, Harry had been able to hear the uncertainty in his father's voice. "When their '_tecknology'_ allows them to do the same things we can with magic, maybe they wouldn't need to fear us anymore. They're already inventing all kinds of er, '_machickes'_ that do things we use spells for. Maybe someday we'll meet as equals."

Harry had mulled over than for a bit. "But what if they found out about us before that?" he had asked. "Or what if we're equals and they still want to hurt us? What if they're still scared of us and hate magic?"

"Let's not worry about spilling an empty cauldron, son." His father's shoulders had sunk a little bit. The silence had stretched for a long while. "I failed you today, Harry. First with your aunt and then at the park. I should have talked with Petunia first. Our previous meetings didn't go well, you see. She and Vernon didn't even come to the wedding. But I thought that, surely… you and Charlie are her nephews, Lily's only children…" James had shaken his head. "And I should have been more careful. You should have never come across those vandals… Merlin, Lily would have skinned me alive. I'm sorry, son, for being such a terrible father."

"You're not a terrible father!" Harry had exclaimed with fervour. "You're the best dad ever!"  
That night he had fallen asleep to the sight of himself, powerful and as tall as his dad, but surrounded by muggles. Thousands and thousands of muggles who wanted to hurt him, to maim him because they were scared of his magic. He fought them bravely but they were too many and, in the end, they took his wand from him and began tearing at his face and body with their long claws, faces distorted with cruelty as he screamed and pieces of his flesh fell with a splash to the ground. The next morning, Charlie had found him in the library, practicing wand movements with a fake wand their father had brought for them years ago. His brother had never taken well to being ignored and, as the time Harry spent reading gradually increased over the years, his relationship with Charlie went from best friends and constant companions to what they had now.

"Does this take a lot of time?" Justin Finch-Fletchley asked Harry when Ollivander went to find new boxes for Charlie and him. Harry glanced up from his book and the other boy seemed startled at the hostility in his eyes. "No," he said coldly and returned to his reading. He heard Charlie apologizing for him and felt the curious gaze of Professor McGonagall, but he pretended to be engrossed in the book.

Justin Finch-Fletchley, his parents and Professor McGonagall stayed only fifteen minutes in the shop and Charlie was getting desperate. "I wonder," Ollivander whispered and pulled a box that was placed on a shelf in the back of the store, almost hidden from sight. It was made of holly, he said, eleven inches long and with a core of a phoenix feather. When Charlie tried it, nothing exploded, broke or crashed into a wall. That's how Harry knew that his brother had found his wand.

His father and Sirius cheered but their laughter died in their lungs when Ollivander said, "I remember every wand I've ever sold, Mr. Potter. It so happens that the phoenix whose feather resides in your wand gave another feather... just one other. It is curious that you should be destined for this wand when its brother gave you that scar."

"You can't mean… _him_?" Charlie asked with horror.

"The wand chooses the wizard, Mr. Potter," Ollivander said with a smile that wasn't at all reassuring. "It's not always clear why. But I think it is clear that we can expect great things from you. After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things. Terrible! Yes. But great."

After paying for the wand, James and Sirius hurried to leave the shop and Charlie didn't waste his time either. Harry stayed behind and looked at the old wizard quizzically. "Yes, Mr. Potter?"

"My wand…" Harry began and hesitated. It was so stupid to ask. "There's nothing special about it, is there?"

"Every wand is special, Mr. Potter," Ollivander said with a frown. _That's a no_, Harry thought and regretted asking the question. He bid the old wizard farewell and followed his family on the street. He could feel Ollivander's pale silver eyes on his back for a long, long while.

xxxXXXxxx

The living room was alight with candles and wreathed in the sound of human voices and music. It was a room large enough to accommodate twice the people seated around the table at that moment; a cosy and warm parlour that was nothing like the grim home at Grimmauld Place that Sirius Black had inherited from his mother six years ago. The Black family's new home in Tinworth was one of Harry Potter's favourite places and he was happy whenever his godfather and his wife invited them over for dinner. That evening they were celebrating the ending of Harry's and Charlie's last day with their family before the start of their first school year at Hogwarts. The next time they would be able to consider themselves anything other than students of the ancient wizrading school, they would be almost eighteen – grown men in the eyes of the wizarding world.

Sirius's youngest son, Alphard, had already been sent to his bed and the two elder Black children were playing in their room. Harry and Charlie were very proud that they were allowed to stay at the table with the adults and listen to their conversation. Aunt Aurelia was discussing her favourite topic – the differences between muggle and wizarding government. She was born in an old Italian pureblood family, the Calabreses, but she'd been disowned by her father because she had applied to a muggle university after graduating from the Roman Academy of Magic. Harry was pretty sure that his godfather had married Aurelia just because such a perfect way to annoy his parents had never occurred to _him_.

"You can't possibly call it a representative democracy either," Aurelia Black argued, pointing at the rest of them with a fork. "If only the Wizengamot has the power to elect the Minister for Magic and the Minister has the power to appoint members of the court, then the state is clearly ruled by an oligarchy." To her left, Sirius smiled fondly, as he always did when his wife started showing her 'Moonish' side.

"The idea was to make possible the admission of capable younger officials and ordinary wizards and witches into the council," Remus Lupin said from the other end of the table. "I know that it didn't work out as planned but don't all political systems eventually evolve into oligarchies?"

"They do," Aurelia admitted. "And then, sooner or later, the country starts heading towards revolution."

At the mention of a revolution, Harry perked up. It was a word ripe with meaning and rich in imagery; it conjured in his mind pictures of legendary battles and noble heroes. Of war he knew only what he'd read in children's stories and dry history books, and Harry wasn't used to think of the stories of terror his father had told him about the Dark Lord's rebellion as a 'war', not like those in his books.

He and Charlie turned to their father with hope. "Is there going to be a war, dad?"

"You two look very excited," James noted.

Harry nodded with eagerness and felt that his brother wanted to talk about his dream to be a great Hit Wizard one day, but then uncle Remus interfered. "There's nothing exciting about war," he said. "It brings destruction and misery and leaves behind only cripples, mourners, thieves and corpses. We grew up during a war, kids. Believe me, it's nothing you'd want to see." He paused to give to his words more weight and then added, "But revolution does not necessary mean war."

"What does it mean then?" Harry asked.

"A fundamental change of government," his father replied instead. "If the Wizengamot is overthrown by the masses who want 'equality and freedom', that's a revolution. If someone very demagogic gains autocratic power – that's also a revolution."

"Autocratic power?" Charlie repeated with a frown.

"One person rules all," Harry explained to his brother.

Charlie seemed horrified. "He can do anything? There're no restrictions?"

Aurelia smiled. "Certainly not anything but, yes, an autocrat can do _quite_ a lot.

"Then why have we chosen democracy?" Harry asked. "It's useless." All his life he had listened to adults complaining about how corrupt and useless the Ministry was, what a liar every politician in it was and how people with money were practically above the law.

He had said nothing he hadn't heard them say a thousand times, yet his father and Sirius chuckled at his words. "A fan of the Ministry, my son," his father drawled. "We should let him write Tom Riddle's speeches."

"Harry, you know what one of my teachers once told me? He said that good dictatorship is better than good democracy," said aunt Aurelia, "but even bad democracy is better than bad dictatorship."

"And since we are very, very good at making things bad," Sirius continued. "We chose democracy… Or whatever twisted form of it the Ministry has invented. You can ask Tom Riddle for full report of the destruction of our society because of the government's incompetence."

James Potter nodded. "The catch is, once a monarch has the absolute power, there's nothing that guarantees that he'll to his duty and care for his people. Absolute power corrupts absolutely or something like that. In democracy, at least, the masses give their representatives power but, if the representatives want to keep that power, the people have to be kept relatively satisfied."

"But you're not satisfied!" Charlie exclaimed, very confused. "You're complaining about politicians _all the time_!"

The adults around the table laughed as if that was the funniest thing they had ever heard. "And we'd have complained about any lord or autocrat, if we had one, Charlie," uncle Remus said in his usual patient voice. "I'm sure that if some deity came down in order to rule our world and create the perfect society without suffering and misery, people would still find reasons to complain."

"Like those damn angels that always take the best clouds and walk around half naked," Sirius suggested.

Harry thought about that. "But we have magical vows," he said reminded, "that can make sure that the ruling king does his duty. Then we wouldn't need the Wizangamot."

"Have you ever heard of someone in the Ministry taking a vow?" His father snorted. "They won't agree to do it. If they did, our dear council members would die like flies. Besides, vows can be twisted however it suits you. The spirit and the letter of the law, de facto and de jure and so on."

"But you can't twist an Unbreakable, dad." Charlie chipped in.

"That you can't." James admitted.

Harry grinned widely. "Being a king sounds awesome."

"Of course it sounds 'awesome' to you." Charlie chuckled. "Kings only order other people around. It's your dream job."

"There's much more to being a king than ordering people around," Aurelia said and regarded him curiously. "Would you enjoy being a king, Harry?"

"Why not?" Anyone would. "I'd be king and Charlie will lead my aurors."

His brother grinned. "Deal. There'll be no one to stand in our way."

"My little sons scheming to take over the world," their father cooed tenderly and paused as if to commit the moment to memory. Then he added innocently, "And what will your beloved father get?"

"Anything you want, dad," Harry promised with a smile. "Anything you want."

James Potter laughed. "Now _there_'s a king I'd follow."

xxxXXXxxx

Harry's bond with his father had always been special. It wasn't one born of similarities, the way it was with James and Charlie, but it was special nonetheless. With Charlie, their father laughed and shared jokes and made all kinds of childish pranks, but to Harry he talked honestly, like an equal. "Charles is everything James was at eleven… Arrogant and stubborn and reckless and a little bit cruel sometimes. But noble too, and brave; the best friend you could ever ask for," his uncle Remus had told him once. "But you, Harry, remind me more of Lily. And of your grandfather, I think. James doesn't always understand you, not as easily as he understands Charlie, but he loves you just as much. Never doubt that."

That was why Harry wasn't surprised when, a few minutes after the Potters had returned from Tinworth and gone to bed, the door of his room opened and his father asked if they could talk. Harry nodded and pulled himself up with a smile. He was nervous about going to Hogwarts the next day and a talk with his dad always helped him tame his fears. James was more sombre than usual, though, and he sat on the edge of Harry's bed with a heavy sigh, as if he didn't like what he was about to do.

"Son, you know I love you, right?" his father asked and looked at him with pity and sadness in his eyes. Harry raised an eyebrow. "Yes, I know. I love you too, dad. Are you going to get sentimental about us starting-"

"And you know that Charlie is famous, right?" was the next question and this one not only surprised Harry, but confused him as well. They had had the _Talk_ about Charlie's fame years ago, when he and his brother had been about four or five. "The Boy-Who-Lived, yes," he said dryly. "I have heard it mentioned once or twice when we go out. Why?"

James sighed again. "Well, since you two are going to Hogwarts tomorrow, I thought that I should warn you, Harry. The kids you're going to live with, the kids you'll share seven years of your life with, they have grown up with the legend of your brother. He won't be just an ordinary student to them. They will watch everything he does, they will _talk_ about everything he does and they will tell stories about many things he's never done as if they were true. And some of the friends he makes may be his friends only _because_ of his fame and not despite it."

"Yeah, I know," Harry said. But he didn't, not really. He was used to the thought that, in public, Charlie would always be the centre of all attention. Grown wizards and witches wanted to shake Charlie's hand, to take his autograph, to have a photo taken with him. They sometimes cried like children when his brother said so much as a few awkward words of compassion to them. Harry knew that - even if he had always been a bit bitter about being shunned aside as soon as it was found that he was only Charles Potter's _twin_ - and he didn't care much. He didn't care because the Potters only rarely went out in public and, at home, he was just as important as his brother. His father's words, however, made him realize, with a great amount of terror, that life in Hogwarts would be life_ in_ _public_. In Hogwarts, Harry would _never_ be as important as his brother.

"No, you don't know," his father said with sadness in his voice. "I already talked to Charlie about this, but I think I should talk to you as well… because you won't be just an ordinary student either, Harry."

Harry looked up at him with surprise. "What do you-" Then the realization hit him. "I'll always be _his twin_, won't I? The brother of the famous Boy-Who-Lived." His father nodded. "I didn't want to talk to you about this until now because it's not fair. You shouldn't have to live with something like this… But neither should Charlie and I'll do you both no favours if I don't warn you about it. People can be very cruel sometimes, son, especially when talking about people they consider famous. They will talk about Charlie, and will consequently talk about you, as if you have no feelings, as if they have a right to discuss your lives and choices and words. And you won't be able to ignore it because you will be living and sleeping and eating with those people. I think it won't be any easier for you than it will be for Charlie."

"What should I do?" Harry asked. He wasn't nervous about starting school anymore. He was angry. Angry at classmates he didn't know for things they hadn't yet said and maybe never would. His father sighed. "Just be patient, son. Most of them will always compare you to Charlie. You can't do anything about that but ignore it, the same way Charlie can do nothing but ignore what is said about him. You will, eventually, find people who think of you as Harry, not as the brother of the Boy-Who-Lived, but you'll have to be patient. Most of your classmates are just kids who are raised to think of Charlie as a hero. Many of them will be dazzled by him at the beginning and, even when talking to you, may be more interested in him than they are in you. Don't get angry, son. Answer their questions and show them who _you_ are."

Harry wanted to argue but his father raised a hand to stop him. "I'm _not_ saying you should be friends with people who only use you to get to Charlie," he stressed. "Don't _ever_ think about doing that. But you should give your classmates some time to get over the fact that their hero is not living with them. After the first few days, if someone is still only asking you about Charlie, then you cut them off and go talk to someone else."

"I will try to be patient… for the first few minutes," Harry promised darkly. He had grown up without his mother so he didn't know if uncle Remus was right that he resembled her. But he knew that he was his father's son as well. Harry had too much pride to allow himself to be used by someone because of Charlie's fame. Accustomed to his family's unconditional love and attention, he thought that he'd rather be alone than a mere shadow of his brother. "I can't promise I won't curse anyone, though."

"Well, I never said I wanted a saint for a son," his father said and a slow grin appeared on his face. "I just hope you're not like me when I was your age. You make sure you don't kill someone, kid, and we're fine."

"Did _you_ kill someone?" Harry asked, then thought of the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters and added, "While you were at school."

His father's smile withered. "I almost did."

The voice was poignant but icy and Harry knew that he wouldn't learn more about the subject, not for some time at least. So he decided to ask his father a question that had bothered him for the last few months. "Dad, what if I'm not in Gryffindor?"

His father regarded him thoughtfully for a moment, then smiled. "Are you thinking about Ravenclaw? Your brother will declare himself a prophet, you know. Hope you're ready to endure it."

"What if I'm not in Ravenclaw either?" demanded Harry.

"Hufflepuff will gain an excellent student," James said and his smile widened. "When you mature, you realize there's no one more deserving of respect than a person who works hard toward his goals, is loyal to his friends and just to his enemies."

"And what if I'm… not in Hufflepuff?"

His father laughed now. "Then _Slytherin_ will gain an excellent student, won't it?"

Harry's surprise must have shown on his face because his father stopped laughing and scratched the back of his head. "That's what I get for joking so much about evil Slytherins, I guess," he muttered, then fixed Harry with a rather serious look. "Son, I don't think there's anything wrong with Slytherin. It's probably hard to believe me right now, considering how often your uncles and I joke about it, but it's true. Those jokes are just a way for us to return to our childhood, when things were simple and school rivalries mattered, but that's all they are – jokes. While we were in Hogwarts it was important, of course. We made a great deal of noise about house rivalries. But then we graduated, looked around the real world and realized that, in the end of the day, those things were just games. They don't really matter, not once you leave school."

Harry smiled. "Really?"

"Believe me, the only adults who aren't your teachers and care about school houses are those with arrested development," his father said. "You think I don't want my sons to be ambitious? Of course I do! You'll have to support families one day, to make something of yourself, and I hope you aim as high as you can. You think I don't want my sons to value knowledge and intelligence? Or hard-work? It doesn't matter if you're not in Gryffindor, son. You don't have to be in Gryffindor to be brave, in Ravenclaw to be smart, in Hufflepuff to be just or in Slytherin to be ambitious. In the name of Merlin, the most treacherous little _coward_ I know was a Gryffindor."

_Peter Pettigrew_, Harry thought. It was the name of a man he had never met, but a man he hated more than anyone in the world. The Dark Lord had attacked his home, killed his mother and almost killed his brother, and Harry hated him for it, but everyone knew that the Dark Lord was a monster, the most evil man in the world, if he was even human. Peter Pettigrew, though, had been a friend of his family and he had sent them all to their graves the minute he had betrayed them to his master. Harry _loathed_ him with his whole soul.

"You want to know what I think now about the Sorting Hat, son?" his father asked suddenly and Harry nodded because, really, how could he say no? Tomorrow he would have to put it on his head, in front of the whole school. "I think it doesn't care what we are. It can send cowards to Gryffindor, traitors to Hufflepuff, halfwits to Slytherin and illiterates to Ravenclaw. Bravery and intelligence and loyalty and ambition are traits we all posses, in different degrees. The hat doesn't care about the traits we _posses_; it cares about the traits we chose to believe are important to us."

"That practically means that… we chose which house we want to be sent into?" Harry demanded. He wouldn't have to worry about anything if he could just choose where to go. _Not Gryffindor_._ Never._

"To a certain degree, we do," his father said. "But I think the way we've lived our lives to that moment is also important. If you've always valued both bravery and ambition, it can let you chose between Gryffindor and Slytherin. But if your whole life you haven't cared about books or knowledge, you won't get into Ravenclaw, no matter how much you beg."

Harry waited for a few moments, but then he couldn't help himself.

"Well, at least we know where Charlie _won't_ be," he drawled and burst out laughing when his father punched him in the shoulder. "Mocking your brother, eh? Just wait until you're sorted into Slytherin with all the others _evil_ bastards, Harry. You'll be disowned immediately."

"You're really getting old, dad. You just almost told me you _won't_ disown me for getting into Slytherin."

"I wouldn't be too sure about that…"

xxxXXXxxx

"I am pleased to welcome two new members to our ranks this year. First, Professor Burbage, who has kindly consented to fill the post of Muggle Studies teacher," Albus Dumbledore announced after the sorting was done. Harry studied carefully the greying woman who waved to the hall with a nervous smile, and decided that she was harmless. While students in other houses welcomed the new teacher with applause, he was one of the few Slytherins who joined in. A tall, dark-haired girl with blue eyes and rich robes and a plump blonde with glasses were the only other first-years who dared breach the stony silence of their housemates.

"Professor Quirrell, meanwhile," said Dumbledore, "will be taking over the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher." A pale, blad man stood up from his place on the dais and gave his students a reserved nod. Harry thought that he seemed stiff and cold and wondered if he would be the same in class. Not that it mattered to him; he had already gone twice through all first-year books.

Dumbledore then warned them not to wander into the Forbidden Forest and sent them to their beds. Harry caught his gaze and was given a small nod that meant the old wizard saw nothing wrong with him being a Slytherin. Harry smiled in return; so Charlie would be the only one he would have to deal with. His brother hadn't looked at him since the hat had been lifted from his head.

When the prefects called for their attention, Harry used the disorder to head toward the Gryffindor first-years. Some of them looked at him suspiciously, but none moved to stop him. Each and every one of them knew who he was and that was the moment when the meaning his father's words truly dawned on Harry. It was true that he would never be invisible to his classmates, but he would be visible in perhaps the worst possible way: he was the Boy-Who-Lived's brother. Everyone expected him to be the jealous, less talented Potter and, with him being sorted into Slytherin, even the _evil_ one in the eyes of some of them. "We need to talk," he told his brother when he reached him.

Charlie's mouth was set in a thin line, his jaw clenched. "Is there something to talk about?"

"Obviously, there is," Harry said. "Or you wouldn't be glaring at me as if I stole your stupid chocolate frog cards collection."

Charlie didn't even smile or try to defend his collection, as he usually did.

"Why Slytherin?" he asked. "Why not Gryffindor or Ravenclaw? Why the Death Eater's training camp?"

Harry sighed. Never before had he felt more strongly his gradual estrangement from his twin. Slytherin was the house of ambition and, if Charlie knew anything about him, he would have known that there was no other house Harry could have been sent to. "Charlie, Slytherin is _not_ a Death Eat-"

"Potter!" a voice bellowed and they both turned, startled. A thin man with greasy black hair and hooked nose was making his way toward them. Harry had rarely seen so much hostility directed toward him from a stranger. "Do you think your housemates are supposed to wait until you have finished your chat with your famous brother, Potter?"

"No… Professor," Harry said. The last word he added only because he remembered that this man had been seated next to Quirrell on the high table. "I wasn't expecting anyone to wait for me. I would have caught up with them later."

"And if you'd gotten yourself lost, the prefects would just have to miss out on some sleep to find you, wouldn't they?" the man hissed. "Your attitude will not be tolerated in my house. You might be labouring under the delusion that the entire school is supposed to function in accordance with your whims… but I don't care about inflated egos, Potter."

"Neither do I." Harry said.

The man narrowed his black eyes at him. They were filled with malice. "Congratulations, Potter. For your remarkable impudence, you're the first student who gets detention this year. Tomorrow night Mr. Filch will for you in his office." His finger pointed toward the door of the great hall. "To the dungeons. _Now_."

"Yes, _sir_. "Harry clenched his teeth, sent his brother a look that warned him that the conversation was far from over and rushed to his housemates. Only then did he notice that all the students left in the hall were giving him and the barmy git, who was now attacking Charlie, strange looks; as if there was something not quite right in the situation.

When he caught up to his year-mates, the dark-haired girl who had clapped for Professor Burbage turned to him with a frown. "What did you _do_ to Snape?" she asked.

So _that_ was Snape. Harry had heard of him from his father and uncles, but he had never seen him in person. Now that he had, he didn't feel like had been missing out on anything. "Nothing," he said. "I was born."

"The older students say that usually doesn't punish us," the girl informed him. By 'us' she meant the Slytherins. "To give you detention on the first day… I'd say you're not exactly his favourite student. Any idea why?"

"My father and godfather weren't exactly his favourite classmates," Harry replied, then stretched out his hand. "Harry Potter."

The girl lifted an eyebrow at him. "I know."

"Well, that was the nicer way of asking what _your_ name is." He hadn't withdrawn his hand and she took it with a smile. "Daphne Greengrass."

"I see that at least one of you knows not to mingle with the wrong sort, Potter," drawled a voice to his left and Harry turned to see a tall, grey-eyed boy with light hair and sharp features. His hand was stretched out toward Harry. "My name's Malfoy. Draco Malfoy."

After thinking briefly about it, Harry took his hand. He didn't like other boy, but he had no intention of antagonizing him without reason. Malfoy looked like someone who could be very, very annoying. "I think we missed each other on the train. My brother said you paid him a visit," Harry said and was pleased to see Malfoy's pale cheeks tint with pink. Back on the train, Charlie had gone on at length about this boy's arrogance and the nasty jinx he had flung at him. After the first twenty minutes Harry had almost regretted not falling down the toilet.

"Is it true that your brother was trained by Dumbledore?" a rabbity looking, scrawny boy with brown hair asked before Malfoy could say another word. From the sorting Harry remembered that his surname was Nott. So another child of a Death Eater.

"_We_ were trained mostly by our father and some of his Auror friends," he replied casually, as if he didn't realize that his answer would be copied word for word in Nott's and Malfoy's next letters to their fathers. "But Dumbledore stopped by from time to time, too."

Dumbledore had given him advice, just once, on the movement required for performing a Levitation Charm and his father and Sirius had taught him and his brother only the basics, before they even had their wands, but his classmates didn't need to know those details. Harry was confident that he could handle himself well enough in a duel for the lie to be convincing, and the more other students were wary of challenging his brother – the longer Charlie was going to stay out of trouble.

"I hope," said the dark-skinned boy who had been sorted last, "that you're tougher than you look, Potter."

"I think I'll be alright." Harry smiled. He remembered that the boy's name was Zabini. "Thanks for the concern… ah, I don't think we've met. What's your name, actually?"

"Blaise Zabini," the boy said with a scathing look. "Don't think too highly of yourself, Potter. You're only known because of your brother. Without his fame, you're nothing."

"Now, don't be so bitter, you're known too," Harry said. "How's your mother feeling with her new husband? I hope this one doesn't die and leave her rich. Isn't it just _terrible_ when people do that?"

Malfoy snickered. He seemed like someone who could laugh at anyone's expense but his own. Daphne Greengrass was smiling too, though.

Soon they reached the common room. It was hidden behind a wall in the cellars. Because of its position directly under the lake, prefect Gemma Farley explained, the light in the room had a green tinge. Low backed black and dark green leather sofas and dark wood cupboards were scattered throughout the room, with buttons and skulls engraved in them. It was sumptuous and grand, with an air of detached coldness to it, and Harry decided that he liked it.

Most of his year-mates headed toward one of the sofas and waved to him to follow, but Harry sat on one of the empty sofas and pulled out the thick book his father had enchanted to fit into his pocket. He knew he would have to learn to tolerate them, but he was tired and didn't want to start just yet.

Daphne Greengrass sat down beside him. "That book isn't on the list."

He gave her a nod. "I already finished them. And a few others." He didn't need more than two weeks to go through one of his father's old student books, and he had had four years.

"You don't like them very much," she noted. She meant Malfoy, Nott and Zabini.

"I don't like bigots," Harry said.

She lifted an eyebrow. "I don't like them either, but… just out of curiosity, who do you consider a bigot?"

"An idiot who thinks muggles are inferior and hate them."

"And you don't?"

"I don't think they're inferior," Harry answered, quietly. A glance at her told him that she hadn't caught the meaning behind his words. He really _didn't_ think that muggles were inferior, not in masses.

But he had said nothing about not hating them.


	2. Victims of Muggles

_**Chapter 2**_

**Victims of Muggles**

* * *

"_The surplus of stories about him as a young boy creates the false impression his future fate was clear to anyone who cared to look. Nothing can be further than the truth._ _Though recognizable at sight by the entire student body, neither of the Potter twins was doing anything unusual enough to create a sensation. __It wasn't until Harry Potter started to gain influence in the political circles that many of us tried to recall his Hogwarts years in the light of him being anything more than the Boy-Who-Lived's brother. The only unusual thing I remember about him as a teenager, if my memory is not failing me in my old age, is that he seemed to devour monstrous books in the matter of hours, that he had the unshakable cockiness of a child who is adored by his family and that the girls he was involved with were always, invariably pureblood._"

- From "My Life in a Turbulent Age" by Owen Cauldwell

* * *

**September 1991 - June1992**

The library of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was one of the greatest archives of knowledge in the Wizarding world and held over half a million works of numerous authors, some dated as far back as the times of the Roman Empire. The hushed sounds of turning pages and fidgeting students, the musky smell of ochre parchment and halted time were things Harry Potter quickly grew accustomed to. The library was where he had spent a large portion of his first two weeks at Hogwarts, though not nearly as large as he had wanted to. Now that he had a wand and plenty of space around, Harry used every opportunity to go to one of the many unused classrooms in the castle and practice the spells he had learned by reading. "You're mad, Potter," Daphne had told him when she realized that he spent almost all of his time learning magic. "Madder than Dumbledore."

The two of them were now seated at one of the wooden tables in the library and several pieces of parchment were scattered over the table. Earlier that day Snape had assigned the first-year students an essay about Boil Cure potions and Harry wanted to start working on it as early as possible. The Potions master still treated him with contempt and his classes each week were an exercise in self-control and patience. Harry knew the answers to all of Snape's theoretical questions but that wasn't enough to earn him a good grade, not in Potions and not with Snape as a teacher. The git spent at least half of the class hovering over Harry's cauldron and waiting for him to make a practical mistake. And Harry rarely disappointed him because, as Draco Malfoy had smugly pointed out, "Potter, you may be perfect at everything else but you're rubbish at Potions."

"We need to talk," said a familiar voice and Harry looked up from his essay to find Charlie towering over the table with arms crossed in front of his chest and chin defiantly jutted out. It was the first time his brother deigned to talk to him since the night of their Sorting. "I think I should probably leave you two alone," Daphne said after a single glance at him and went to look for another reference book on the properties of Porcupine quills.

"What do we need to talk about, stranger?" Harry asked his brother. He had stopped trying to talk to him about a week ago. Charlie frowned at him. "You're spending an awful lot of time with Malfoy, Parkinson, Zabini and the rest of their crowd."

"They're my housemates," Harry pointed out. _And I don't really have anyone else to spend my time with because my stupid brother is ignoring me_, he thought but said nothing. Most of his classes were a constant source of boredom and irritation but they did have a certain advantage: they had raised his status in the eyes of housemates. The Slytherins had decided that his magical abilities made him a valuable ally and Harry had suddenly found himself surrounded by people willing to do him favours.

"They're not your only housemates. There _must_ be someone better than Malfoy in Slytherin," Charlie argued. "I'm not letting you turn evil, you know. That's what I came here to say." After his declaration, he sat down in the seat Daphne had vacated and glared around as if he expected evil spirits to appear from behind one of the wooden shelves and try to abduct his brother. Harry lifted an eyebrow. "I thought that being sorted into Slytherin means I'm already evil."

"No. I've known you longer than anyone in the world and I say that some stupid hat sending you to Slytherin doesn't make you evil," Charlie announced in a loud voice. "But hanging around Malfoys and Zabinis _will_. That's why we, my dear brother, are going to spend a lot of time together."

"Pull out a book, then," Harry said with a shrug and returned his eyes to his work. As he expected, in the face this unexpected obstacle Charlie's resolve to save his soul from the powers of evil crumbled at once. "But… in the library?" his brother asked in a very small and scared voice. Harry laughed. "Books don't bite, Charlie. Seriously." "Ugh," his brother said. "Let's talk." "About what?" "About friends. How's life in Slytherin? Are you excited about flying lessons tomorrow? The girl who was here, what's her name?"

"Hold on. I've a question I want you to answer first," Harry said. "What changed your mind?" He had known that Charlie wasn't going to ignore him forever but he had expected him to sulk around for much longer.

"Two things," Charlie replied readily. He lifted a finger. "First, dad's letter. You wouldn't believe the things he said, Harry. The way he talked, you'd think that full sainthood is required in order to go to Slytherin and I should be ashamed of myself for even thinking otherwise. Did you know that Merlin was a Slytherin? Of course you did, dumb question." His brother shook his head and lifted a second finger. "Anyway, I was still angry. But then I realized that, right now, _Malfoy_ knows more about what my twin is doing and thinking about than I do and _I_ am the one to blame because I'm ignoring you. That's why I came here. I want to apologize for being a git, Harry. I'm sorry. Really."

Harry smiled at the end of Charlie's speech, filled with love toward his brother. "You're forgiven," he said. "But next time you start ignoring me, I'll tell everyone about that time you stuck yourself to the toilet."

"I knew you'd use that against me one day!" his twin complained. "How in the name of your old housemate Merlin did I _ever_ miss all the signs of you being a Slytherin?" They laughed together. It was a relief for Harry to know that, even if they weren't nearly as close as they used to be, there was still nothing he could do to make Charlie abandon him.

xxxXXXxxx

Harry had never thought it possible that someone could live at Hogwarts without talking to their housemates but in the next several months he achieved it. Since he had already mastered the spells taught to the other first-years and could answer most theoretical questions, his teachers no longer reproved him for reading books in their classes. He'd taken to bringing third-year student books from the library with him and when his housemates were not making a disaster out of things as simple as a Switching Spell or a Hover Charm, the Professors were more than happy to answer any questions he had. This set him apart in more ways than one. When he wasn't isolated in class, Harry was practicing magic or studying in the library. When he wasn't doing that either, he was spending time with his brother.

Soon the only Slytherins he occasionally talked to were Daphne and Tracey Davis. Tracey was a nervous, quiet girl who flushed red when someone spoke to her, bit her lip a lot and was more than happy to fade away into the background. When Harry had mentioned her to Charlie, his brother hadn't even known there _was_ a Tracey Davis in Slytherin. Harry talked to the girl because she was Daphne's friend but he didn't really know what to make of her. She was like a female Neville Longbottom, only less noticeable. He couldn't understand why those two were so edgy and afraid to speak their minds. Harry himself was not the most talkative person in the world but that wasn't out of nervousness; it was by choice. He had been raised by James Potter, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin and, in a family like his, it wasn't speaking that was hard to learn. It was keeping _quiet_.

Harry didn't spend enough time with his housemates, however, to worry much about Tracey Davis. Charlie had promised him that he would leave him no time for the likes of Malfoy and Zabini and he was keeping true to his word, sometimes going so far as to spend time in the school library.

Today both Gryffindor and Slytherin had their second classes on the third floor and Harry had suggested to his brother that they go to lunch together. Leaning against one of the walls in the corridor with hands in the pockets of his robe, he deeply regretted that decision as he waited for Charlie to finish his conversation with Quirinus Quirrell. The Defence Against the Dark Arts professor was his brother's favourite teacher and often kept him for a few minutes after class. Harry was straining his ears to hear what they were talking about inside, but Ron Weasley made him lose his concentration.

"What's taking them so long?" the red-haired boy asked impatiently. "What if we miss lunch? Or, worse, what if there are no mashed potatoes left when we get there?"

"Do you think I can hear them with you whining in my ears?" Harry snapped at him. He had caught the words 'scar' and 'hurts' but nothing else. "No one's forcing you to wait for us."

The red-haired boy lifted his arms in feigned defeat. "Fine, I'll be quiet- don't cut off my head."

Ron was his brother's closest friend in Gryffindor but he always looked at Harry's green house tie with suspicion. To him, any person sorted to Slytherin was a person of questionable character.

Soon Charlie appeared from behind the heavy wooden door of the classroom and the three of them headed toward the ground floor. When Harry asked him what Quirrell and he had talked about, his brother shrugged. "Er, he wanted to look at my scar. You know, for traces of dark magic. It kind of hurts lately."

"What do you mean it hurts?" Harry asked, alarmed. He had a scar on his stomach from his encounter with the muggles and it didn't hurt. Scars weren't _supposed_ to hurt.

But he should have known better than to hope for a satisfying answer from Charlie. His twin had never been comfortable to talk about his scar. It reminded him that their mother's fate had been much worse than a scar on the forehead. "It's not important," his brother said. "It doesn't hurt a lot anyway."

"It's not supposed to hurt even a little," Harry pointed out but then decided to let the matter drop.

Ron Weasley had another question on his mind. "So, ugh, Harry? I wanted- to ask you something," he said. "Don't take it the wrong way or anything." Harry looked at him with bored expectation and he took it as a sign to go on. "Have you heard your housemates say anything about those stories in the _Daily Prophet_ lately?"

"What stories?" Harry asked. He didn't get the _Prophet_.

"I told you, Ron," Charlie interfered. "Our dad thinks the _Prophet_ is the saddest excuse for a newspaper in the world. He says it's not even worth the paper it's printed on. We're not subscribed."

"But where do you learn when something important happens?" Ron demanded.

_From the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot_, Harry thought. _From one of the best Aurors in the Ministry, from the Head of the Investigation Department_. "We manage," he said aloud. "Now tell us about those articles."

"Well, recently there has been a lot of stories published about muggles abusing magical children - bullying in muggle orphanages, abuse by religious parents and the like," the red-haired boy told them with a frown. "I thought that, if anyone would be talking about it, it would be, you know, the Slytherins."

"They probably do." Harry agreed and suddenly regretted not being subscribed to the newspaper. Ron gave him a strange look. "Shouldn't you _know?_ You being a Slytherin and all…"

"I don't really talk to my housemates." Harry said.

Ron gaped at him. "I don't blame you or anything but… what do you _do_ when you aren't here?"

Harry didn't like the way the red-haired boy made it sound as if he was just tagging along behind his brother and him. "I'm studying," he drawled. "It won't hurt you to try it."

"Why are you studying so much for?" Ron asked. "You're already the best in the year. Worse than Granger even." Charlie laughed. "Don't you mean he's _better_ than Granger, Ron?"

"That's what I said."

Harry promised himself to find out more about those articles. Ron was right. If anyone in Hogwarts would pay attention to them, if anyone would discuss them with eagerness and fervour, it would be the Slytherins. Not all of his housemates were purists, of course. Daphne Greengrass certainly was not and neither was the prefect, Gemma Farley. Not all of them were even pureblood. Tracey Davis was a halfblood, just like Harry himself. They were all interested, however, whether politically or economically, in the relations between their community and the muggle world. Harry felt ashamed and a bit betrayed by the fact that he had to learn about those articles from Ron Weasley and not from the numerous discussions that were, without any doubt, held in the Slytherin common room.

"I'll sit at the Slytherin table today," he told his brother and Ron when the three of them entered the Great Hall. For the first time in months, Draco Malfoy was the one Harry looked for when he wondered where to sit. First-years usually sat at the end of the table but Malfoy and his cronies were sitting closer to the middle. Gregory Goyle and Vincent Crabbe were, as usual, stuffing food into their mouths but Malfoy, Zabini and Pansy Parkinson were talking animatedly about something. Harry saw a copy of the _Prophet_ in the hands of the black-haired girl and also distinctly heard the word "riddle".

They quietened when Harry came near. Their eyes were narrowed, hostile and suspicious, and Harry wondered why he hadn't noticed the change before. In the beginning of the year Harry had been accepted as one of them, as an ally and perhaps a friend, but now that he spent most of his time with his brother and the Gryffindors he was, apparently, no longer welcome among them.

There was enough space for one more person to sit and Harry decided to use it. Just when he was about to sit down, though, Malfoy put his foot on the bench. "What do you want, Potty?" the git challenged.

"To sit," Harry answered. Malfoy made such a grand gesture toward the Gryffindor table that it drew the attention of older students. "In case you've forgotten, you usually sit right there, Potty. Next to Scarhead and Weasel."

Harry narrowed his eyes and tried to keep in mind a lesson his godfather had once told him was the most important thing he learned in Auror training: _if your opponent is goading you into feeling a certain way, Harry, the worst favour you can do yourself is to let them_. "I'd rather sit here," he said but Malfoy laughed mockingly. "Oh, but you can't. Don't you see? My foot sits here." The other Slytherins sniggered and Harry realized that, if he allowed Malfoy to chase him off like a whipped dog, his future in house Slytherin would be very bleak. His housemates were now watching them, waiting to see what the Boy-Who-Lived's brother would do when challenged.

"I see," he said and people around him laughed. "You or your foot, then?"

A hush suddenly fell over the table and Malfoy knitted his thin brows in confusion. "What are you talking about, Potter?" Harry smiled. "I'm asking which one you want to keep on the bench, Malfoy – your foot or yourself?" His hand was in the pocket of his robe, fingers wrapped around his wand, and he saw Malfoy look at him with sudden apprehension. "The teachers are watching, Potter. If you curse me here, you'll serve detention to the end of your seventh year!"

"I will," Harry agreed. "But you'll be planted head-down in the soup by the time they get here, Malfoy."

Most of the hall was now watching them. Malfoy crossed his arms in front of his chest stubbornly, as if willing Harry to go away, but his resolve was crumbling. His grey eyes kept moving between Harry and the soup tureen, back and forth and back again. The decision showed on his face long before he could bring himself to do it.

He lowered his foot.

"Thank you," Harry drawled mockingly, swirled around and went to sit near the end of the table, next to Daphne Greengrass and Tracey Davis. Behind him, Malfoy sputtered in indignation.

He wasn't the only one who had noticed Harry's absence at the Slytherin table, however. "Oh Merlin, something's wrong with my eyes," Daphne said in feigned surprise. "Harry Potter? Is that you? It _can't_ be yet it _is_!" she drawled, then pointed toward the Gryffindor table. "In case you have forgotten, you usually sit right _there_, Potter. With our revered Quidditch star."

"I guess I deserved that." Harry sighed. "I'm sorry."

Beside her, Tracey was beaming at him with joy. "That was amazing, Harry!" she said with rare confidence and animation. She wasn't very fond of Malfoy. "Everyone is laughing at the other tables."

They were; Gryffindor loudest of all.

Daphne was less than impressed. "That was stupid," she said. "You made him an enemy."

"Did you see how he acted?" Harry bristled. "There's nothing else I could have done! What do you want me to do next time – lick his shoes?"

"Well, you could have _not_ ignored us for months," Daphne proposed innocently. "Anyway, I think that if you go talk to them as if nothing happened before we return for dinner, Malfoy will be the first to jump at the opportunity. He knows you're better than him at magic and I bet he wants this incident forgotten."

"I-I don't get it," Tracey murmured, nervous again. "Why was it stupid? Why do you want to be friends with them?"

"Because," Harry said grimly, "no one at _our_ table is laughing."

He had spent too much time hanging around his brother; ignored his housemates for far too long. When Malfoy had told him that his place was not at the Slytherin table, many of the other students agreed – Harry had seen it in their eyes. If he had been someone invisible, someone whose brother wasn't hailed as the saviour of the wizarding world, he thought bitterly, no one but the other first-years would have noticed his isolation from the rest of the Slytherins. But he was not invisible and now he had a huge problem. For a minute there, he had even been afraid that one of his own housemates was going to fling a hex at his back.

That was _not_ going to happen again.

xxxXXXxxx

Large grey clouds scudded across the blue sky as Hogwarts Express rolled over the rails, past mountains and rivers, down south toward London. Harry was sitting in one of the compartments with an old fifth-year Transfiguration student book on his lap and the voices of his housemates droned on around him without registering in his mind. '_The Inanimatus Conjurus Spell is one of the simpler conjurations in this most intricate branch of Transfiguration. It brings into being inanimate objects that (like any conjuration) will not last long. The spell is restricted by law and nature-_'

"Harry!" Harry lifted his head to see Draco Malfoy staring him with annoyance. "Yes, Draco?"

"Well, it was about time you heard," the boy whined. "I was just saying that I'm not sure what I like more – that Slytherin took the House Cup for the seventh consecutive year or that Gryffindor finished last."

"That's just you," Harry said and returned his eyes to the book. "_I_ am more interested in me winning than in other people losing."

The two large boys who sat in the seats next to Malfoy laughed with their mouths full of cake and Harry pursed his lips in distaste. Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle seemed to think that laughing at anything they couldn't understand made them look smarter. They laughed a lot, but no one was deluded.

"Gryffindor took the Quidditch cup, though," Daphne reminded. She was reading the _Daily Prophet_ and Harry wondered if there were any new articles published on muggle-wizarding relations. At least a hundred of those had been published in the past few months and none of them painted the muggle world in a positive light. Each article and its implications had been discussed at great length in the Slytherin common room and Harry couldn't help but agree with the predominant opinion that those articles only proved the simple truth that muggles and wizards could never live peacefully together.

"We'll take it back next year," Malfoy declared with certainty. "Your brother may be the youngest seeker in a century, Harry, but that just because McGonagall bent the rules for our precious _saviour_. Now we have to watch him show off with that snitch all the bloody time, like he's the only one who can catch it. Who gave it to him, anyway? Next year I swear I'll show him how real wizards play. "

"Do try," Harry urged him. "When he takes the snitch from under your nose, I won't laugh- too much."

"You're just saying that because he's your brother," Malfoy huffed.

"Sure," Harry said with a smirk that would make his father proud. "Keep on believing that."

The door of their compartment opened and Pansy Parkinson stepped inside. For some reason she seemed very pleased with herself; her dark eyes were laughing and her lips were twisted in a devilish smile. Knowing the girl well, Harry couldn't help but ask, "Whose life did you ruin, Pansy?"

The black-haired girl looked at him with an expression of pure innocence. "Why do you think I ruined anyone's life?"

"You're smiling, Parkinson," Daphne told her in a dry voice. That was, really, the only explanation.

"Let's just say," Pansy began and her smile widened, "that I taught our dear little horse-faced Lavender what happens when she talks behind someone's back."

"Hypocrite," Harry drawled and Malfoy sniggered. The girl crossed her arms and looked at them with an air of icy superiority. "Shut up. I don't want her talking behind _my_ back. And because of what you just did, I won't tell you what she said about the two of you."

_You'll tell us because you want to_, Harry thought. Aloud he said, "Fine. See if we care."

"She said you were an arrogant muggle-hater who thinks the world revolves around him just because his brother is a hero and he's good at some spells," Pansy told him. "But don't worry, Harry, I left the little horse face crying in the toilet. She'll keep her mouth shut from now on."

Harry was careful to keep his face expressionless, but bitterness and hurt gnawed at him. That wasn't the worst he had heard about himself during his stay at Hogwarts – far from the worst, actually - but it hurt, just like the rest. While he had hanged around the Gryffindors and his brother, he had helped Lavender Brown master the Curse of the Bogies and, arrogant muggle-hater that he was, even given her tips about the essay on the Warlocks Convention of 1709 that professor Binns had assigned them shortly before Christmas break. Next time, he vowed, she would have to deal with her problems on her own.

"Merlin, shouldn't Brown register at the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures? No human should be that dumb," Malfoy said. "What did she say about me?"

"I'm not telling you, Draco."

"But you told Harry!"

"I told him because he didn't care," Pansy said with a smirk. "_You_, on the other hand… you keep begging. I _may_ change my mind."

For the next half an hour, Malfoy and Pansy bickered, Crabbe and Goyle played exploding snap, Harry and Daphne read, and Hogwarts Express went on. The plump witch pushing the food trolley opened the door of their compartment and offered them sweets. Dark clouds gathered outside. A couple of older Hufflepuffs broke up in the middle of the corridor. Daphne gasped, "Merlin's beard!"

"What?" Harry and Pansy asked at the same time.

She looked up from the newspaper and shook her head. "Nothing, just reading an article about muggles executing people for sorcery."

"The Witch-hunt?" Harry asked and they looked at him with lifted eyebrows. "From the fifteenth to the eighteenth century Christian muggles burned at the stake about fifty thousand women of their own for using 'sorcery'. Real witches, of course, weren't really harmed."

"You read ahead in _history,_ too?" Pansy exclaimed, horrified.

Always thinking about his own benefit, Draco Malfoy threw her a look of derision. "At least he's winning points for Slytherin," he said. "And who _cares_ if muggles burned some muggles? I say _good riddance_, burn some more. They can't capture real witches anyway."

"It doesn't matter if the witches are real or not, Malfoy. It's the _intention_ that's important. And the intention clearly was to get rid of magical people," Daphne said. "The article mentions the Witch-hunt in Europe and the Salem witch trials in the US but also executions of sorcerers in," she continued and turned down to read from the article, "'Ancient Egypt, the Antiquity, the Middle Ages, Early Modern Europe and even _today_. In some places women are still sentenced to death or driven to commit suicide if they are accused of having magical powers.' How sick is that? There's even a statistic, look- that's how many people muggles are willing to kill if they think they're magical."

They looked. The article estimated the people executed because of witchcraft or sorcery in Europe, Africa, the Americas and Asia throughout the entire history of muggle civilization in the hundred thousands. It even listed some recent cases. "That's more than twice the entire population of Wizarding Britain, Germany and France!" Malfoy exclaimed.

"Imagine if they _could_ catch us," Harry said darkly, imaging that all too well.

"There's no chance of that happening," Pansy interfered. "Those creatures shouldn't even be considered human. They're dumb, completely useless and inept."

"I think you're underestimating them," Daphne said. "You remember that article a few months back? The one about their weapons and 'tecknology'?"

"Why are they publishing all those articles anyway?" Harry asked. He didn't remember his father mentioning such articles before. They had started to appear earlier that year, seemingly without reason. The Ministry wasn't happy and there were rumours that Minister Fudge had threatened to punish Barnabas Cuffe, the editor-in-chief of the _Daily Prophet_, if the articles didn't stop. The Ministry didn't have much tolerance for people expressing opinions harmful to their policies and Cuffe wasn't exactly known for his strong belief in impartiality. Under his leadership, the _Daily Prophet_ had turned into an instrument of the Ministry and it was nothing less than a wonder that the articles continued to be published.

Malfoy smirked and threw out his chest, as he always did when he knew something that Harry didn't. Harry didn't miss the glances he exchanged with Pansy, Crabbe and Goyle. "What, Malfoy?" he said. "You know something."

"I do, _Potter_," Malfoy said. "But father wouldn't want me to tell anyone."

"Just like McGonagall wouldn't want me to help you with your homework," Harry reminded.

Malfoy mulled things over for a bit, obviously weighting the satisfaction he'd get from bragging against his father's anger over him revealing _some tiny minor detail_ to a housemate. Harry knew which side would win without any doubt. "I can't tell you a lot," Malfoy whispered conspiratorially. "But you'd have learned in a few months anyway. I overheard father say that Tom Riddle might be back in Britain."

Harry knew very little about Tom Riddle. From the bits and pieces he had managed to put together from various conversations, he knew that Tom Riddle had been an extremely influential politician who thought that the Ministry was useless. He had gained popularity by being very effective in dealing with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, had almost become the Minister for Magic and had mysteriously disappeared about the time Charlie had defeated the Dark Lord. Some wizards even joked about him _being_ the Dark Lord because of the coincidence of his disappearance and the Dark Lord's defeat, but no one really believed it. Tom Riddle was a half-blood and had lost his wife and son to the Dark Lord; that was a well-known fact. Besides, Harry hadn't ever heard anyone say that Tom Riddle was a raving lunatic so, clearly, he couldn't be the Dark Lord.

"Do you think he'll try to take over the Ministry?" he asked his housemates. They looked at each other, and shrugged. "If he does, I hope he gets rid of the mudbloods," Crabbe said. Harry narrowed his eyes at him, "Don't use that word!"

"Do you have to do that _every time_ someone says 'mudblood'?" Malfoy whined. "It's not like you're some muggle-lover anyway."

"Muggles and muggle-borns are two different things," Harry said. "One has magic, the other doesn't."

"If you don't hate them," Pansy said, "why haven't I seen you talk to any mudbloods?"

Harry had no answer for her. He just wasn't comfortable with muggle-borns. He couldn't tell that to his housemates, though, so he just said, "Don't use that word!"

A few minutes before Hogwarts Express arrived at Platform 9¾ many of the other students in their carriage could be seen wearing what Harry presumed were muggle clothes. Loud colours, ridiculous dresses and tiny shorts made him glad that his father had bought one of the expensive portkeys that allowed them to avoid going out in the muggle world. His housemates made no move to change either, though he wouldn't have minded seeing Pansy in tight muggle wear. Recently he had started noticing that her breasts were more developed than those of the other Slytherin girls in their year and stared at them whenever she wasn't looking. Her smirk told him that she knew, though.

"I have an idea for next year," Harry said while they made their way through the disorderly crowd in the carriage. "You can refuse if you want, I don't care. I want to find a club. For practicing magic. Duelling, mainly. Exercises in class or alone are _not_ enough."

Malfoy had that particular expression that he wore when he was trying to decide if something benefited him or not. "Father would approve," he said in the end. It meant that he agreed. Crabbe and Goyle grunted their agreement a moment later. "I'm in," Daphne said. "But we'll have to get permission from Snape and I think someone else should ask him. Anyone but you, really."

"We should tell Blaise and Nott, too," Pansy said.

When they stepped outside, they promised to write over the summer, bid each other farewell and scattered, each looking for their family. Harry and Charlie had agreed that they should travel in different compartments because they had the whole summer to spend together while they wouldn't see their housemates for another three months. Harry hadn't wanted to travel with his grumpy brother anyway. Charlie had been in a bad mood all week, after he had learned that Professor Quirrell had decided to quit his post and would not be returning the next year. "I was _so_ sure he'd be the first to stay more than a year!" his brother had told him. "And what, he quits to go work for some friend? Imagine the loon we could get next year."

Harry needed no more than a minute to find his family in the crowd, standing in the middle of a circle formed by whispering observers. His father had gained weight over the months they hadn't seen each other but he looked happier than Harry remembered him. Sirius was there beside him, joking with Charlie. The three of them laughed.

Alphard saw him first, gave out a cry of triumph and sprinted toward him. Harry ruffled the little boy's hair. Six-year-old, with his father's curly black hair and his mother's dark eyes, Alphard Black was a ball full of life, laughter and, most of all, curiosity. "How was Hogwarts? Did the Slytherins steal your blood and sell it on Knockturn Alley? Did you do any pranks? Is Dumbledore really crazy? Did your DADA teacher die?" the boy asked in one breath. "Is it true that you have to fight a troll to get sorted? Daddy and Uncle James say you have to but I don't believe them. They also said that beetles are tasty but they were so _yucky_! Have you eaten beetles? What did you eat at Hogwarts? Was-"

"Al, I think you have to stop talking if you want him to answer even _one_ of these," a laughing girlish voice said and Harry lifted his eyes to see Andromeda, Sirius's nine-year-old eldest child and only daughter, shaking her head at her brother. "Welcome back, Harry," she said and gave him a hug. He grinned. "Thanks, Andy. Where's Leo?"

"He went with mum to buy you presents," Alphard said, then quickly covered his mouth with his palm. Andromeda sighed in exasperation. "We weren't supposed to tell him, Al. Can't you keep just one thing a secret?"

Harry laughed and shook his head. It was good to be home.

Later that night, he shared with his father the things Malfoy had told him and was surprised to learn that he already knew. "Albus is worried," his father said. "I don't know why. There's nothing that suggests that Riddle is anything more or less than what he claims to be – an overly ambitious politician. But if he really is behind these articles, then Albus has every right to be worried about him."

_But the articles only say the truth_, Harry thought and kept silent.

* * *

A/N: This is my first (and, hopefully, last) author's note. I just wanted to address something - this story is, obviously, set in an alternative universe and its main focus is politics. Even in our own world, where people rarely live more than 100 years, an influential politician who is under the age of 40 is considered extremely young. Harry will be, of course, younger than that, but he still won't make a particularly believable politician as a teenager. I decided to give him time to grow while also dealing with my biggest pet peeve in the books - the complete lack of anything _resembling_ an intelligent plan of action or social policy that Voldemort displays. That's why the most important part of the story takes place after Harry graduates from Hogwarts and while I _could_ write chapters and chapters of filler and show you all the spells he masters/the friends he makes/the exams he takes, I decided that it would be best to show you only scenes that will have some impact later on and get to the main story faster. I apologize if time seems to fly too fast now.

Thank you all for the support.

P.S. A reviewer pointed out that Merlin can't possibly have been a student at Hogwarts and I want to say that I'm completely aware of that. But it's what JKR said at Pottermore so, in her universe, Merlin (apparently) lived some time after the founding of Hogwarts. Also keep in mind that the article Daphne is reading has a certain political purpose and that purpose is _not_ to provide objective information.


	3. A Sense of Unease

_**Chapter 3**_

**A Sense of Unease**

* * *

"_Let us look at the situation in what was still known as Wizarding Britain in 1992. As early as that, the spirit that triggers the events to come can already be tasted in the air: fertility rates among pureblood families are on an all- time high (it was not, until then, unusual to see a family with only one heir), games like Squib Trap are just gaining popularity and the press seems concerned to the point of obsession with examples of the muggle world's innate hostility toward the 'unnatural'. One cannot help but wonder if it is not Tom Riddle's formidable powers of mass manipulation that create the instrument of his own downfall_."

- From "Cultural Characteristics of the Wizarding Revival" by Pandra Hilliard

* * *

**October 1992 - March 1993**

That morning the Slytherin table was louder than usual, bubbling over with excitement and a pinch of trepidation that earned its students more than a dozen suspicious glances from the rest of their classmates. Harry caught himself glancing up toward the enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall for the tenth time since he had arrived for breakfast and forced himself to stop. Very few of his housemates had been told what to expect that morning and _all_ of them had been warned to keep silent on the matter, but – as was always the case when a large group of children gathered together in one place – it hadn't taken long for the secret to become public to any and all Slytherins. Harry had written to warn his father and godfather so they'd know what to expect and a glance toward Dumbledore's empty seat at the high table told him that the old wizard was aware as well.

The mail arrived in a flurry of hundreds of owls and Slytherin held out its breath. Draco Malfoy was one of the first who got their hands on a copy of the _Daily Prophet_ and he quickly turned its front page toward Harry.

_TOM RIDDLE REPLACES UMBRIDGE AS SENIOR UNDERSECRETARY_

_Earlier this morning, Dolores Umbridge resigned her position as the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic. When asked about the reason for her resignation, Umbridge said only, "I serve the Ministry." On 1 January, Umbridge will head the International Magical Office of Law, replacing Hilliard Hobday, a known supporter of the policies of Supreme Mugwump Albus Dumbledore. She shows enthusiasm for her new position and expresses her desire to maintain the good relations between the British Wizarding Government and the International Confederation of Wizards._

_Meanwhile, Tom Riddle takes her place as the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic. Few are surprised by this sudden appointment to such a high ranking position. We remember well how effective Mr. Riddle was in his efforts to keep at bay the followers of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named during the war. Known for his severe criticism of the actions of the Ministry, Mr. Riddle enjoyed enough popularity to be offered the position of Minister for Magic after Charles Potter's glorious defeat of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. To the disappointment of many, he turned it down, saying that he needed to take a break from politics after the war had, finally, come to an end. We are certain that many of our readers rejoice at the news that a man of such talents returns to the Ministry._

_"I am grateful to Minister Fudge for the trust he has shown in me," said Mr. Riddle in his acceptance speech. "Twelve years have passed since I had opportunity to serve my people in a time when we had lost touch with honour and freedom and darkness threatened to overtake us from within. But we persevered in our stand for freedom and today we are a thriving community of wizards and witches who have faith in the strength of their hearts and hope for the future. It is to the future generations, to our children, that we owe our efforts to do more than just survive; our efforts to change, to turn Wizarding Britain into a symbol of independence and magical power and to vanquish corruption, ignorance and spiritual stagnation. With the wise guidance of Minister Fudge and the members of the Wizengamot, with the support of the brave wizards and witches who fought for their freedom in the war, I believe that this noble goal is well within our reach._"

Harry finished reading the article and an intangible feeling of dissatisfaction formed in the pit of his stomach. "Is it—wise," he asked no one in particular, "for him to start talking about changes the second he's given the position?"

"Maybe he wants to warn us now so there are no surprises later?" Daphne suggested. Not a single person in Wizarding Britain with a brain in their head doubted that Tom Riddle would eventually assume the position of Minister for Magic. There were many who would be content in a position just a few steps below the very top, but Riddle was not one of them. Harry had researched Riddle's background and the results showed that in all matters - from his education to his professional career - the man strived for nothing short of perfection.

All of the Slytherin second-years were sitting at their proper place at the table – higher than the first-years but lower than the third-years – and each of them clutched in his hands a copy of the _Daily Prophet_. Even Crabbe and Goyle were demonstrating previously unsuspected abilities to read. They stood at Malfoy's left and right, with Blaise Zabini and Millicent Bulstrode beside them. Harry was sitting just across them; right next to Daphne and Tracey. Pansy and Theodore Nott sat to his left. In many ways, this arrangement was a declaration of allegiances, a sign of the current distribution of power among the Slytherin second-years.

"I think he knows what he's doing," Zabini said. "How many wizards and witches have you heard whine about the corruption in the Ministry? Riddle vowing to 'vanquish corruption' would make them support him."

"That can't be good for your family, can it, Draco?" Bulstrode asked sweetly. She had large, square build, black hair and heavy liked to make fun of her for her ugliness but Bulstrode gave as good as she got, as far as insults were concerned.

Malfoy frowned at her.

"Riddle won't do anything to my family," he drawled, feeling the need to reassure the others of his position now that an enemy of his father's former Master had risen in ranks. "Father said he has everything under control. He's not worried at all."

"Strangely, neither is mine," said Theodore. After his mother's death, he had been raised only by his father, same as Harry. He preferred to keep to himself, though, and only rarely joined large groups. He was one of the best students in their year and Harry was surprised to find that he actually liked the boy and did not just tolerate him, like he did many of his housemates.

"H-he doesn't promise to vanquish _only_ corruption," Tracey said in her nervous way. She was observant, even if she rarely summoned up the courage to speak up.

Daphne looked at the article. "Ah, yes, he wants to 'turn Wizarding Britain into a symbol of independence and magical power.' We're already independent, though—does he mean to start a war?" She continued to read. "He also thinks we must get rid of our 'ignorance and spiritual stagnation'… what does he mean by that? Ignorance of what?"

"If he's the one behind all those articles last year," Harry said dryly, "he probably means ignorance of the fact that there's no chance for wizards and muggles to live together."

"Where can I vote for him?" Zabini drawled.

"If he's talking about 'spiritual stagnation'," Theodore said, "something tells me that he won't stop with some small changes in the Ministry."

"I hope he gets rid of the mudbloods," Malfoy announced and Pansy shook her head. "He won't," she said, sadly. "His stupid wife was one."

The discussion continued until they had to leave for their first class for the day. While they were walking Harry felt Daphne's gaze on his back and couldn't help but ask, "What?"

She seemed startled. "Nothing."

"You're looking at me all the time," Harry pointed out. "Why?"

"Well, I don't know if I should say this," Daphne began with uncharacteristic uncertainty, "but you've stopped correcting people when they use the word 'mudblood.' In fact, I don't think you even notice it anymore."

"I just-" Harry said, thinking back. She was right. When had he stopped paying attention? _Why_ had he? "I didn't want to fight a pointless battle, that's all. They're not going to stop using it. And it's just a word, right?"

She looked at him dubiously but kept silent.

History of Magic, taught by the ghost of Professor Cuthbert Binns, was commonly agreed to be the most boring subject in the long history of boring subjects. Most of the students could not listen to more than five minutes of Binns's flat drone without falling asleep and only occasionally waking up long enough to write down a name or a date. The only student in Slytherin who could resist the soporific powers of Binns's voice was Harry, but the man had not even bothered to remember his name. He called him 'Mr. Perkins' and Harry could only shake his head at a history teacher who could not remember the name _Potter_.

That day they were listening to his lecture on the International Warlock Convention of 1289. Harry found wizarding history in the Middle Ages utterly boring but he knew that he'd have to wait for some time before they got to the modern period, or at least to what Binns considered 'modern' period. He wasn't that far ahead in his reading, either. He had barely lifted his head from his books all summer but the material got more and more complex with each year and he advanced at a much slower pace than he was used to. He didn't have time for reading history anymore, not if he wanted to fulfil his goal of finishing the material of all seven years at Hogwarts earlier than his classmates and spending some time mastering magic a bit more complex than their curriculum allowed.

While his hand mechanically wrote down every word that Professor Binns uttered in his insipid, monotonous voice, Harry found himself thinking about Tom Riddle.

The man's past was certainly impressive enough to warrant the excitement that his return in Britain had caused among the wizarding population. An orphan raised in a muggle world, Riddle was a known supporter of the traditions and the customs of wizarding Britain, a patron of the arts and the genius behind several magical discoveries. When Nobby Leach had become the first muggle-born Minister of Magic in 1962 and declared in his address to the leaders of the Squib Rights marches that wizards and non-wizards could learn to coexist peacefully, Riddle had risen from his seat in the Wizengamot and said: "I have heard alarming rumours that basilisks, acromantulas and manticores do not get along very well, like they are supposed to in the peaceful utopian world we have created in our minds. While we are on the matter of changing nature to suit our ideals, would our esteemed Minister like to share with us his plans to change this appalling situation as well?"

One thing could be said about the man for certain – among the population of Wizarding Britain, he had either enemies or supporters. No one remained indifferent to Tom Riddle. During the war, he had criticized both the Ministry and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, quite vocally at that, and had come out more popular than both of them put together.

That was not to say, of course, that he had come out unscathed. Although it was widely known that Riddle despised muggle influences on wizarding culture and felt only contempt for the muggle world he had been raised in, the one thing that had protected him from alienating the part of the population that thought pureblood supremacy was a load of bollocks had been his wife. A muggle-born woman whose easy smile and honest brown eyes had won her the admiration of most of Wizarding Britain, Marlene Riddle had paid the price for her husband's brave opposition to the Dark Lord. Some claimed that the Dark Lord had done it himself, some said that he had sent his most trusted follower, the feared Bellatrix Lestrange. Either way, the pictures in the article that announced the murders of Riddle's wife and son were a testimony to the mind of a monster. Harry had a hard time imaging the amount of inhumanity and hatred that went into mutilating the bodies of a defenceless woman and a little boy in such a way, muggle-born or not.

Riddle had been crushed. The face in the pictures of him after the murders showed a man who was haunted, a man who had lost everything in his brave stand against injustice. He had not let the Dark Lord win, though, and had persisted in his efforts to bring order to their community. His assistance saved several old families from being completely wiped out. He had saved the lives of Fabian Prewett, Dorcas Meadowes, Caradoc Dearborn and many others. He had forced the Wizangamot to grant him the right to decide the fate of the captured Death Eaters on the spot, to propose laws without consulting the Minister, to negotiate on behalf of the British Ministry with the communities of various magical creatures and beings. Tom Riddle had been the first and only wizard to hold the offices of Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Head of the Department of Magical Transportation and the Head the International Magical Office of Law at the same time. He had been way on his way to become Minister for Magic as well by the time Charlie had defeated the Dark Lord.

"Merlin, Binns speaks like he's afraid we may hear something," Pansy whispered, suddenly interested in the lecture. She stood beside Harry and he was painfully aware of her breasts against his arm when she leaned forward to look at his notes. She smiled and looked at him from under her lashes. "Who were the French wizards who controlled William of Something and fought over the riches of the Templers? I couldn't hear."

"William of Beaujeu," Harry corrected, flushed. Before he could tear his mind away from the warmness touching his arm long enough to answer her question, Malfoy chimed in sleepily from the seat behind them.

"The wizards were Gratien _Guilhabert_ and Ciel _Artois_. Is that so difficult to remember, Pansy?" he drawled. His expression was smug. "Father says that the only thing you need to know about French politics is that if some Guilhabert says Hungarian Horntails are dangerous, some Artois would say they're the most harmless creatures in the world. Basically the whole history of Wizarding France revolves around the houses of Guilhabert and Artois pulling each other's pigtails over several centuries. They're the oldest and most powerful families there. _Almost_ as old and powerful as the Malfoys, I'd say."

"I _know_ who Guilhabert and Artois are, Draco," Pansy snapped. "I just… couldn't hear clearly." Her cheeks reddened and she quickly turned back to her own notes. They consisted of no more than two sentences. "Who cares about France anyway?" she muttered.

Daphne snorted at the other girl's words and Harry turned to her with a raised eyebrow. Instead of answering his implied question, Daphne wrote something on a piece of parchment and pushed it toward him. '_Pansy doesn't really care __who was stealing from the Templers, you know'_, it read.

'_Then why did she ask me?'_ Harry wrote back. She looked at him as if he was an idiot and shook her head. '_You boys are so _slow_ sometimes_,' was all she offered.

After another twenty minutes of Binns's drone, Harry was at the end of his patience. Exciting things were happening in the real world - things he wanted to know more about – and he couldn't be bothered to care about the issues that had occupied wizards seven centuries past. Gratien Guilhabert, Ciel Artois, the muggle kings Philippe IV and Edward I were all long dead and forgotten. He raised his hand. "Professor Binns?"

The ghost lifted his head from his notes and blinked several times in confusion. It was obvious that he had no idea what to do in the face of this unprecedented phenomenon. Harry was willing to bet that at least several decades had passed since the last time a student had raised a hand in Binns's class. "Yes, Mr. Perkins?"

"I wanted to know what you think about the idea of muggles and wizards living together peacefully," Harry asked.

The ghost of Professor Binns frowned at him. "That question has no relation to the discussion at hand, Mr. Perkins," he reprimanded. The unexpected attention of all of the students in his class, however, mellowed him enough to add, "The issue of the coexistence of the magical and non-magical is a very old one."

Several of Harry's housemates asked the man if he meant the Dark Lord's rebellion and he shook his head in annoyance.

"It is one of the greatest tragedies of our kind that the young seem to be always drawn to the illusion of _novelty_," Professor Binns said. Harry had never imagined that the history teacher could sound anything other than bored and was surprised to discover a hint of passion in his voice. "The young mind prefers the hopes of tomorrow to the teachings of the past. And yet, it is history that is the pillar of our society, the cradle of civilization. History bares the human heart before us and uncovers the workings of our minds, it traces the way our ideals rise and fall, it humbles us with the realization that people long gone used to live with hopes and fears and thoughts no different than our own, with the same self-cantered delusion that their generation is chosen to free our kind from the conservatism and the injustice of the past."

"So you're basically saying that we need to learn history better if we think that this issue started with the You-Know-Who?" Harry asked, just to make sure.

"Yes, Mr. Perkins, that's what I'm _basically_ saying," Binns snapped. "Now we should return to the events that lead to the Convention of 1289-"

"Do you mean Gellert Grindelwald, Professor?" Malfoy spoke up before the man managed to make the class boring again. Binns turned the force of his unimpressed eyes toward him. "No, Mr. Marley. It started way before him."

"But he was the second most dangerous dark wizard in history, wasn't he?" Pansy asked. "Something like the Dark Lord. He killed a lot of muggles."

The ghost looked as if Pansy's definition of Grindelwald made him want to die. Again.

"The rise of Gellert Grindelwald, Miss Parker, is one of the most tragic events in our history," he said in a pained voice. "He reigned over several European countries for more than a decade before his defeat in 1945. He was the reason for the deaths of over sixty million muggles. His goal was the _subjection_ of the muggle world to our own and the creation of a Wizarding Empire that would unite the entire wizarding population of Earth. I'd say that the bloody lesson he taught us has to be remembered better than just 'something like the Dark Lord_'_." He glanced around the classroom. "But Grindelwald doesn't concern the wizards who lived in 1289 in any way. _They_ were more worried about the popularity of the conspicuous new sport Quidditch and the decline of the Knights of Templar…"

The class sighed and slowly resigned itself to another hour of napping. Harry wrote diligently, his mind far away.

xxxXXXxxx

Sometimes, Harry grew so tired of life at Hogwarts that he would have spent the entire year in the Forbidden Forest, had he known a way to do that without causing a scandal and worrying his father to death. His relationships with most of his classmates were strained and, regardless of what he told himself, that made him feel terrible. It took a lot of work to be as good a student as he was - long hours every day spent over dusty books and diagrams, weeks of practicing spells that even older students found difficult. That didn't leave much room for socializing or making friends. The Slytherin second-years were the only people Harry was actively trying to keep as friends, and even that was only because they, more than any other House, could make his life a burning hell if he gave them cause.

Justin Finch-Fletchley, the muggle-born boy he had met at Ollivander's, was trying to convince his housemates that Harry was the next Dark Lord. Michael Corner from Ravenclaw claimed that Harry was the top-student only because he had bribed Snape to give him the answers to their final exams in all subjects, which was ironic because the Potion Master continued to despise his very existence. House rivalry might seem stupid later in life, Harry thought bitterly, but it sure mattered when you were twelve. Rivenclaws disliked him for having perfect grades, Hufflepuffs disliked him for being unfriendly, Gryffindors disliked him simply because he was a Slytherin and Harry wondered why the hell any of them thought they had a right to judge him.

Charlie was faring much better. His easy smile and charm had won his the adoration of the entire student body, with the obvious exception of the Slytherins. Harry could only shake his head. His brother strutted around the school as if he owned it, bragged about his Quidditch talent and lost his House points from rule breaking, but somehow Harry was the one who had ended up with a reputation for arrogance.

"Don't mind them, they just want something to gossip about," Charlie had told him during their last weekly meeting in the library. His brother had given up trying to save him from Slytherin influence and had instead decided to provide a healthy dose of _Gryffindor_ influence every week. "But it wouldn't hurt if you joined the Quidditch team, you know. It'd be nice, playing against someone who can actually fly… Please tell that white-haired little git I said that."

"Stop pestering Malfoy, for Merlin's sake," Harry had warned. "I have to actually _live_ with him."

Charlie hadn't let himself be distracted, though. "Come on, bro, join the team. We'll play against each other, just like old times. It'd be fun!"

"I don't have _time_, Charlie," Harry had explained with a patient sigh.

He really didn't - he was going over the material for their fifth year. Not only insanely complex but the Professors had outright forbidden him to practice magic so much above the level appropriate for his age group. Now they adamantly refused to help him, or even let him read in class, and the long hours he wasted every day in their classes did very little to improve his foul mood.

Saturdays were Harry's favourite time of the week. Only then he was free to rummage around the library all day without having to care about being late for one pointless class or another. Today was a beautiful, sunny Saturday and the rest of his classmates were outside, but Harry wasn't happy at all. He had spent the entire morning turning various objects into kittens, then repeatedly trying, and failing, to Vanish the kittens. The Vanishing spell was one of the most complex O.W.L. spells and Professor McGonagall had told him to wait until his third or fourth year to try it. Harry hadn't listened to her. He had learned on his own to apply the spell to most vertebrates but hadn't managed to Vanish any mammals yet and was frustrated by his lack of progress.

Needing a break from his stint of failures and not having much time left until he had to be in the Great Hall anyway, he went to return some books to the library. The librarian, Madam Pince, was a thin, impatient woman who defended the place like a hatching dragon her nest. She liked Harry because he was careful to keep her books safe, returned them on time and didn't do any suspicious activities outside of spending monstrous amounts of time studying. Her liking him meant, of course, that she didn't shout at him as often as she shouted at other students.

"Do you have any other books on Grindelwald, Madam Pince?" he asked and pushed toward her the pile he had taken the previous week.

"For you? " she asked. "Not now. Ask again in four years." She paused to check the titles of the books he had taken. "Why are you so interested in him, Mr. Potter? I think that the less you know about that monster, the better off you are."

"It's interesting," Harry said. "Do you know that the articles published now in the _Daily Prophet_ sound like the things Grindelwald wrote during his reign?"

"Is that so?" Madam Pince asked, her voice completely even.

Harry nodded. "Ours are better, though. They talk about the danger muggles pose to us rather than our superiority to them. They talk about their hatred of us rather than our own. That's smarter."

"Everything's signed," the thin woman announced. "Are you taking any other books?"

"From you?" Harry asked. "Not now."

The trouble was, this Saturday he wasn't free to rummage around the library until it closed. Three days ago Daphne had finally taken mercy on him and told him that, "Pansy likes you, silly. I can't believe how slow you are when it comes to those kinds of things."

Harry thought that he had a rather good excuse for being slow – he was _twelve_. He was also the first of the boys in their year to get himself a date so he couldn't be all that bad. Asking Pansy out, however, had been the single most embarrassing thing in his life; and that was _including_ the time his brother had stolen his clothes and towels from the bathroom and made him walk to his room naked, much to the amusement of Andy and Leo Black. The little tell-tales had even told their father about it and Sirius had made jokes about it for two months. The point was, Pansy hadn't made it easy. She hadn't let him stutter his way out of it, oh no. She had made him say all the words and then burn in a short eternity of hell until she told him her answer.

Harry had taken his revenge by making her promise she wouldn't tell anyone, though. He didn't want the whole school watching him as he made a fool out of himself. Pansy had looked almost offended at first, but then she'd decided that a 'secret romance' was actually a great idea and had agreed to meet him in the empty Great Hall ("Don't be late!") where Harry was supposed to surprise her with some exciting plan for their date. He felt more nervous than he was before an exam - at least Harry knew that he could pass an exam with his eyes closed. _This_ he very much doubted he would live through with both eyes opened wide, his untidy hair almost tamed and a whole day of preparations.

Harry didn't want to have students gawking after his flushed face and nervous gait so he took the longer way to the ground floor. The secluded Charms staircase led him from the library to the Ground Floor Corridor and from there he meant to go to the Training Grounds but stopped short and cursed himself for his stupidity. The Training Grounds were filled with fools wasting their free time to fly around on a broom. Trying to avoid crowds by going there was like trying to avoid getting wet by diving into the Great Lake. He turned back and soon found himself walking along the long and deserted bridge that had to lead him to one of the less crowded areas of the castle.

He was lost in thoughts about his fast approaching first date when he heard it. A scream, then laughter. Insults and crying. Curses. Harry didn't need to wonder what he was listening to. He could recognize those sounds anywhere because they had haunted his nightmares for the last five years, vivid as the first one that hadn't been a dream. He ran toward the source.

All in all, he should have expected it. The articles in the _Daily Prophet_ had done a very good job explaining why muggles posed a threat to wizards and most of the student body had read at least five. The result was now burbling on the stone floor in front of him. He'd just expected that Slytherins would be the first one to do it.

Three of them had surrounded a tiny figure cowering in fear on the floor, looking at him with the cruel faces of people inflicting rightful vengeance on their past tormentor. The only problem was that Harry didn't think the boy lying on the floor had done much tormenting in his life. He was thin and scrawny, with mousy hair and brown eyes. Harry recognized him only because of the camera he was desperately clutching in his hands. The boy was a first-year and one of Charlie's most avid fans. A mublood, too, if Harry remembered correctly.

"What's happening here?" he asked, loudly, just to announce his presence. The answer to his question was rather obvious. They were two boys and one girl, two Gryffindors and a Ravenclaw, older than Harry, with wands pointed at a trembling figure on the floor. A little too late, Harry realized that he should have tried to make more noise before showing up at their scene of crime. Maybe then they would have just run away instead of staying to point their wands at him.

There was a brief moment after seeing him when their faces twisted in horror, but then they took in his green house tie and relaxed. They had mistaken him for his brother. "We're just teaching the little mudblood how to speak properly to wizards, Potter," one of the boys answered. "He told us muggles don't need brooms to fly because they've invented smarter ways of travel called 'aeroplates'. Muggles? Smarter?"

"Have you ever flown on one of those things?" Harry asked him, trying to remember if he knew something about them. "They _may_ be the smarter way."

"He said it almost as if we are the one inferior," the girl persisted. "He shouldn't be talking about wizards that way."

_Maybe he just meant the three of you_, Harry thought but knew better than to say that aloud. This was one of the rare moments when being a Slytherin was useful for anything other than not losing points in Snape's classes. "How about this? You let him go, go back to whatever it was you were doing before you decided to teach him to respect the ah, _intelligence_ of pureblood wizards, and we all forget about this meeting?"

He wasn't surprised to see them lower their wands and look at each other with hesitation. Less important or not, Harry was a Potter and everyone knew that his father was close to Dumbledore. People wouldn't ignore him if he decided to tell anyone about this. It'd be all over the school in minutes.

The boy on the floor, however, had battered pride, unhealthy dose of courage and a death wish. "Cowards!" he shouted. "You attack only in packs, don't you? Cowards!"

Their eyes told Harry what would follow before their wands lifted again. He could have walked away and left them to deal with the little idiot - Merlin knew he bloody well deserved it for not knowing when to keep his big mouth shut. But the idea allowing a group of older kids to torment a lone, weaker one to Harry felt as uncomfortable as donning the skin of a beast he hated with his whole heart. His reaction was instinctual.

"Expelliarmus," he shouted and, in a jet of scarlet light, the Disarming charm hit the dark-haired one of the boys in the chest. Harry had no time to see where the boy's wand had gone; he was already casting a Shield charm to stop the jinxes the other two had sent toward him. Against two opponents who casted spells one after the other in quick succession, it was almost impossible to regain the initiative but Harry made a good job of his defence. He diverted an impressive Leg-Locker Curse, then a weak Banishing charm and a laughable attempt at _Melofors_ – a jinx that was supposed to transfigure his head into a bumpkin. Harry saw enough to decide that his opponents couldn't be older than fourth-years and most probably didn't spend a lot of time practicing their wandwork. He was aware that he didn't have much time, though. The dark-haired boy was frantically looking around for his wand.

Harry diverted another Leg-Locker Curse from the girl and, not bothering to put up a shield against the weak Ventus jinx that her friend send toward him, he fired a Conjunctivitis curse in her direction. She screamed, dropped her wand and started rubbing her swelling eyes. "You blinded me, you gormless twit," the girl shouted in panic. "I'll get you for this!"

Harry saw the boy he had disarmed point his newfound wand at him but then he was thrown back by a blast of air and the Jelly-Legs curse the boy sent his way missed its target. He landed on his ass on the stone floor and felt a dull pain in his back, but clutched his wand tightly in his right hand. Without taking the time to stand up, he made the two swirling motions of the Tongue-Tying curse and fired it toward the blond boy who had hit him with the blasting jinx. Already the least skilled of his opponents, the git was rendered completely useless.

From the corner of his eyes, Harry saw the dark-haired boy wave his wand through the motions of an unfamiliar spell and fear wrapped its fingers around his throat. He quickly rolled aside to escape whatever it was his opponent was sending toward him. On the ground to his right, where he had sat just a moment ago, had appeared an olive king cobra with the glowing green eyes of a cat. The other boy was smiling and Harry wondered if he found it funny to use a snake against a Slytherin. _I guess I should count myself lucky he didn't think to conjure up a kitty_, Harry thought dryly and said the incantation of the Vanishing spell in a clear and confident voice, "Evanesco."

His opponent was more skilled than the other two, though. He didn't lose time to send a Full-Body Bind curse his way and Harry jumped to his feet just barely in time to block it. They traded curses, hexes and jinxes back and forth for the next few minutes and Harry was growing anxious that the other two might soon find a way to cancel each other's spells and attack him again. He was thinking of conjuring flames to slow down his opponent when the first-year Gryffindor he was defending decided, surprisingly, to interfere.

The little idiot gave out a battle cry that would have been hilarious in other circumstances and ran at full speed toward his former bully. The older boy, who had just blocked a Jelly-Fingers curse from Harry, was caught by surprise when the first-year crashed into him and they collapsed on the ground in a manner that looked very painful for the one taking the full force of the clash. Harry was not moved by pity, though. He sent a Full-Body Bind toward them and was only mildly pleased when it hit his dark-haired opponent.

"Did they take your wand?" Harry asked the first-year as he helped him shakily come to his feet. The boy nodded and Harry frowned. "That was very… muggle-like."

"I-it was the only way to help," the younger boy said and grinned. "I did a good job, didn't I?"

Harry wondered if he should explain to him that wizards didn't charge at their opponents like monkeys when they lost their wands. There were two reasons for that. First, it was completely idiotic to attack another wizard without any means of protection in case he decided to turn you into a bumpkin or set you on fire. Second, attacking your opponent the muggle way was a humiliating admission of magical inadequacy, worse even than losing your wand. In the end, he kept silent. It didn't matter anymore – what was done was done.

"Yeah, you did," he said and looked at their opponents. The boy he had Silenced was looking at him with bitter hatred in his eyes. His hands clutched his wand tightly but wordless magic seemed to be so far above his level that he might as well have been disarmed for all the good it did him. The girl was crouching down on the ground, hand wrapped around her head, eyes swollen and unseeing. She was trying to say the counter-curse but, blinded and in pain, she didn't have any luck.

"That was amazing! Thanks _so_ much," the first-year said. He was star-eyed and almost giddy with excitement. Harry had to close his eyes when a camera flashed in front of him. "The two of us, you and me, against three of them fourth-years. Isn't that just awesome? Just as expected from the brother of Charles Potter. Can I take your picture next to the three of them? Oh, wait, you don't know who I am. My name's Colin. Colin Creevey. It's an honour to meet you, Harry."

"Likewise," Harry said with reserve. "Whatever else you do, do _not_ take my picture next to them. Snape will give me enough hell for not calling a teacher as it is. No need to add hero pictures on top of that."

Creevey nodded in understanding. "Of course, Harry," he said brightly. "I don't know what happened. I was just talking about stuff and I mentioned aeroplanes and they got all angry. Don't get offended or anything, but I thought the gits are all in Slytherin. I didn't expect Gryffindors to attack me. That's crazy. Thanks again for helping. I don't want to offend you or anything, but everyone's saying you hate muggles and I thought-"

"I do," Harry interrupted the boy's babbling.

Creevey knit his brows. "But you helped me," he said with a nervous laugh.

"Are you a muggle, Colin?" Harry asked.

"No," the boy answered and all traces of excitement and admiration faded from his face. "But my parents are."

"Well, I don't care what your parents are," Harry told him and turned to go, even though he knew that he had already missed his chance for a date with Pansy. Petty and proud, she wasn't going to forgive him anytime soon. "Since you're the one they attacked, you decide what you want to do about these idiots," he said over his shoulder. "I recommend leaving them here until someone comes looking for them. It's less than they deserve."

He didn't find Pansy in the Great Hall. Tracey, who was waiting for him there, told him with an apologetic smile that she had left fifteen minutes ago and was waiting for him in the Study Area. In the Study Area, however, was waiting a scowling and irritated Millicent Bulstrode who snarled at him that Pansy was actually in the Hall of Hexes. At this point, Harry decided that it was beyond stupid to hope that Pansy hadn't told anyone about their date. He dragged himself all the way up to the seventh floor but there he found only Daphne, her eyes filled with laughter. "If you're looking for your date," she told him with a smile that stretched from one ear to the other, "you may want to check the Common Room."

_Of course she's in the bloody dungeon_, Harry thought. _I should have figured that out as soon as she sent me to the seventh floor._

"Why do the three of you let her order you around?" he asked in annoyance when they began their long way down.

Daphne shrugged and looked at him from the corner of her eyes. "I agreed to do this because it sounded like fun," she said. "As for Tracey and Millicent… My dad says that willing subjects are all anyone really needs in order to command. Pansy can order around anyone who lets her."

They walked in silence for awhile. Harry tried to hide his irritation but the cheerful humming of the girl beside him made it difficult.

"She won't forgive you standing her up easily, you know," Daphne said and Harry gritted his teeth. "Her mother's a harpy and her father's always breaking his promises. She hates it when people break their promises. This was supposed to be her first date."

"It was supposed to be my first date too," Harry said and felt his face redden. He didn't care if Pansy forgave him or not. As far as he was concerned, he had made his grand apology when he had wandered like a dog to look for her all around the castle. Pansy was so protective of her friends that he had almost forgotten how capable she was of bringing someone to the ground.

"You poor thing," Daphne said dryly. "Don't lose hope. Something tells me you'll be just fine."

xxxXXXxxx

Colin Creevey was just the first of many victims. There was no sudden outbreak of derision toward muggle-borns, no violent clash of cultures, but, little by little, a feeling of distrust toward muggles and their world spread among those raised in wizarding households. An article about the destructive power of the nuclear weapon was enough to cause a slight sense of unease but when it was followed by articles that praised the muggle conquest of space and their astonishing fertility rates, supported by many similar articles every week, it was enough to create a numbing, merciless mood dangerously close to fear. It spread throughout the school, regardless of age or house. Even if they could turn a man into a chair and summon objects from a hundred feet away, the students of Hogwarts were just kids and many of them were starting to get scared.

Then the articles stopped. Barnabas Cuffe was quietly relieved from his duties as editor-in-chief of the _Daily Prophet_ and rumour had it that Albus Dumbledore had personally made sure that Cuffe would never find a place in another newspaper. It didn't matter, though, because the press soon found a new obsession.

Robbie Fenwick.

He was a fifteen-year-old boy, a nephew of the muggle-born Benjy Fenwick who had been killed and mutilated by Death Eaters during the war. Robbie was the second wizard in his family and had refused to attend Hogwarts when he had received his letter four years ago. In his muggle school he had been frequently bullied because of his bad teeth and effeminate voice and, one afternoon, he had simply lost control. An accidental Blasting spell had knocked two of his classmates hard on the ground, effectively killing one of them. When asked for his comment on the tragic accident, Senior Undersecretary Tom Riddle said, "Robbie is an unusually gifted boy. Had he received a proper education and training, I believe he would have become a fine wizard."

Many agreed. There were rumours that the Wizengamot was discussing making the attendance of a wizarding school, whether Hogwarts, Durmstrang, Beauxbatons or a school even farther than that, mandatory for all children with magical talent.

Harry supported the idea with his whole heart but a small part of him remembered Colin Creevey, doubled up in pain on the ground, and felt a slight sense of unease.


End file.
